How to Balance Automation and Human Oversight in Project Management
Automation can help you to minimize repetitive tasks, store information in an organized manner, ensure that nothing is missed, and keep track of all your deadlines. However, automation is not the key to how you manage a project’s success.
What is Automation in Project Management?
Automation in project management refers to the application of technology to perform repetitive tasks or support the processes you would otherwise perform manually. The main idea is to save time for your team.
Effective project management will require you to communicate with your team as well as use your experience and creativity.
The key is for you to know which actions should be left to automation and which require you and your team so that you can avoid errors. Your oversight ensures that automated actions are appropriate for your project's objective.
So, how can you balance both?
You Should Start by Automating Repetitive Tasks
The easiest place to start with automation is with tasks that you have to repeat daily. The kinds of things you have to do, like sending out reminders or reminding everyone about upcoming deadlines. You do not always need to do it yourself. Automating these types of activities can free you up to make decisions and plan your projects. That being said, you should still review the kinds of information that are automatically generated and sent out for you.
Sure, an automated reminder might know when something is overdue, but it might not know why something has gone overdue. It may be that one of your team members is prioritizing something else more important.
You can even use an AI detection tool when checking AI-generated project material to see if it needs your oversight.
Automation should help you reduce more routine tasks, but you should still make decisions about what the data really means.
You Should Be Responsible for Important Decisions
While automation is great at providing information, critical decisions regarding your project require your judgment. Your project budget, resources your team needs, and what your clients expect can be more than what an automated system can handle.
Automated systems can flag your project as behind schedule, but you need to know why in order to decide what to do next. You may need to have meetings with teams, consider your clients’ priorities, and find out what changes you need to make to the original plan.
You can use your project reviews to assess your project's success as well as its viability while considering other factors. This will allow you to make more informed decisions about your project.
Bringing together the information from your automated system with the expertise of your staff is a great way to ensure that you are making decisions that are good for your project's outcomes.
You Should Use Automation to Improve Project Monitoring
Of all the other things, you will benefit the most by automating your monitoring process.
If you look back on your projects, you will notice that they create a lot of data. Sometimes there are problems with the budget, deadlines, or other similar issues you need to address in time.
For example, let’s say you use automation to track the amount of money your team is spending on a new project. If a certain part of the process has used an additional sum of money, you will be immediately notified.
With timely alerts, you will be able to keep track of what is happening without having to spend too much time reviewing the project. You will have knowledge ahead, so that your team can fix any issues that cause a delay.
You can then use your judgement to verify whether the purchase was actually necessary or not. The process requires human oversight by reviewing and updating the plan when you need it.
You Should Review Every Automated Information
Project management is not only about following your schedules or keeping everything within your budgets; it is also about the people involved, their expectations, concerns, and even conflicts between two parties.
You have to attentively address everything. This is why you should not leave such an important task of handling people to automation.
Automated messages might help you take care of minor communication that does not need your presence. However, there might be cases that you need to give more time to.
If your team needs to change the project delivery date, for instance, as the project manager, you should be the one to explain the new situation and listen carefully to people’s questions and concerns.
You also have to be smart and negotiate and evaluate each party’s expectations and needs. As the lead, you can build trust with your stakeholders and team members by showing care for their needs or opinions.
You cannot replace personal attention with automated communication.
You Should Review Automation as Your Project Changes
The right balance between automation and your oversight can change at different stages of your project lifecycle.
For instance, there might be an automated scheduling tool that helps you organize the project. However, when a situation arises where you need your team to prioritize another task, you have to step in and update the details yourself.
Your team will otherwise not be aware that they have to complete another high-priority task.
Similarly, you might use an automated e-mail reminder when your team is just starting a project, but you will need to change it and send personalized e-mails to each department during the closing stages.
Therefore, you must routinely review your automated processes, especially those that contain critical information about the project and your strategy. Without such audits, your project can remain incomplete close to the due date.
You can also use such audits to identify processes that do not add any value to your project and eliminate them.
You Should Use Automation Without Losing Accountability
One common mistake you can make is assuming that automation is responsible when something goes wrong with your project. It is not. You and your team will remain accountable for the decisions and outcomes of the project, even when you have used technology to assist you.
This means you should understand what automated processes are doing and why your team is using them.
If an automated system recommends that you should change a deadline because of a possible risk, you should definitely review that recommendation and then make a decision that your team will follow.
Accountability also means that you should keep a record of your entire process. You will make important decisions throughout your project’s lifecycle, and you should have them documented.
Especially if there was a case where you used the help of AI technology to change a decision, then your team should know about it.
You Should Create Clear Rules for Human Oversight
The task becomes easier if you plan ahead to decide what you want to automate and what not. When you do not set well-defined rules, your team might either automate all possible areas or deny automation in any part of their task.
It might be helpful if you separate activities based on the level of impact they have. You can automate activities that do not pose a very high impact on your overall project.
But if any part of the project needs a significant financial commitment from your company or uses sensitive data, then you should have control over the matter.
You should also determine who will take responsibility if there are problems in your project because of automation. It is essential that you clarify this point to your team so that everyone stays on guard with their task.
You Should Build a Culture Where Technology Supports People
You will achieve the best results when your team understands that automation is designed to help them accomplish higher-quality work and deliver better results. You are not trying to take responsibility away from them.
This, of course, will require proper training and open communication with you.
Your team should know which processes are automated, what information the program produces, and when their skills are required. Furthermore, you should instill in them a culture of questioning the results when they automate any task.
The best way to do this, perhaps, is to encourage your team to pick out a task they have automated and look at how technology has enhanced it.
Final Thoughts
Using both automated and human oversight can help you get the best of both worlds.
While automation can make your work easier by reducing the number of monotonous tasks and helping you get to the important stuff faster, your involvement can make the outcomes more plausible and specific for your project.
You can raise the overall quality through your experience and help make better choices.
The best way to utilize both forms is to see where you can use each more effectively. You can have your team be in charge of more complex issues and spend most of your time making the important decisions.
You need to set up proper rules for automated systems and make sure they are regularly audited by either you or your team. This way, you can ensure that the project will run smoothly and productively.
